


I'm fine

by This_ape_writes



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Cancer Arc, F/M, Season/Series 05 Spoilers, redux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2556137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_ape_writes/pseuds/This_ape_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remission is the best news she could hope for. Why doesn't she feel relieved?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm fine

**Author's Note:**

> On my most recent rewatch of Season 5 two things about Redux struck me. Why was Mulder just chilling in the hallway instead of in the hospital room and why when we finally see Scully does she not look happy or relieved but still terrified and exhausted? And then I wrote this.

She's never had a nightmare be so cheery before but that's exactly what this feels like. A nightmare. Everything is too bright. Too loud. Too alive. 

She can't quite grasp ahold of reality. 

It doesn't help that she hasn't had even a minute of time to herself to process anything since the news broke several hours ago. She's just had the chance to go from one hug to another, one well wisher to another and one stunned doctor to another in a revolving loop. 

More of her family has made it into town and they are all gathered around her laughing. She looks at each of them wondering what she's missed that was so funny. Even her boss is standing at the foot of her bed, glasses in hand as he wipes tears out of his eyes and tries to subdue his full blown belly laugh. 

Everyone is buzzing with exuberant energy. 

She feels like all she wants to do is sleep. 

Or cry. 

Ideally both. 

Part of those feelings can be blamed on medications. Her low white blood cell count. Residual stress. Months of spent worry. 

Those aren't the whole picture though and she knows it. She just can't quite bring herself to think about what else there might be. 

Her boss rests his hand on her foot and smiles at her and she pulls at the muscles in her face in how she vaguely remembers a smile should look but it's gone as soon as he glances away. 

The white analogue clock over his shoulder catches her attention again instead. 

The longer of the two hands jumps one click past the 12 and she feels not just tired now but anxious. 

Ok. Worst case scenario if he was held up with something at the hearing there is still no way he was there any later than 5. It's now 7. That means it officially marks at LEAST two hours that he has been out of that courtroom. Even with a drive across town, an unusually long shower, and grabbing a bite to eat it wouldn't have delayed him this long. 

Where the hell is he?

Someone moves in front of her field of vision and she finds herself looking into her mothers worried eyes. 

Mom. 

The only person in the crowded room that is actually here for her in the way that she needs and she feels a genuine smile tug at her face. Her mother frowns a question and she has never been more thankful for their close relationship as she is right at this moment. 

With just a twitch of her own worried eyebrow her mother nods and walks over to her purse to retrieve her cell phone. She holds it up and nods back at her daughter and she knows her smile is full and real this time as once again her mother knows exactly what she needs without her having to say a word. She feels her throat swelling up with tears but she swallows it away painfully and tries to focus on the laughing faces above her as her Catholic guilt slaps her in the face. 

Everyone in this room is, after all, here for her too in their own way. 

 

She takes a moment to really look into the faces of the people around her. They have all kept vigil at her bedside at one time or another over the last few days with their faces drawn, eyes dark, voices subdued. 

Now a switch has been flipped. The news has had an almost Disney Magic like transformation on all of them. Like Cinderella wrapped in fairy dust dragging her rags into a glittering gown, the faces around her are now vivid, their eyes are bright, and their laughter engaging. 

Meanwhile, she is the one person the news actually physically affects and she can't shake that weight of dread that moved in the second she saw the X-ray and knew that it was Cancer all those months ago. 

She is a proudly logical person. She has tried arguing with her mind over the last few hours to try and talk some sense into herself. 

Remission. 

Multiple doctors confirmed.

Hell SHE saw the tests. SHE had confirmed it with her own two eyes. Twice. 

But the dread stays. The sick feeling of cold mist filling her insides and making her want to cry. 

Why can't she shake that? 

The door to her room opens again and she turns to watch her mother enter and the rest of the room follows suit as her mother loudly clears her throat. 

"Ok everyone. We need to wrap up this party for a bit. I know we are all enjoying our time here but my lovely daughter needs some rest." 

Oh thank God.

Everyone mumbles their own protests but they turn to nods of agreement and one by one they hug her, or pat her arm, or her head, or whatever they can reach. They all wish her well and promise visits when she is back home. 

When it's finally just her mother left she sighs and relaxes back into her pillow. 

"They mean well, sweetheart," her mother reminds her with a laugh. 

"Oh Mom I know. Everyone has been amazing through all of this, you especially," she says as her mom crosses the room and grabs ahold of her hand. "But thank you for sending them home I was a little overwhelmed," she adds. Her mom chuckles. 

"Dana you were a little overwhelmed three hours ago," her mom says. She chuckles back. 

"Thank you," she says again. She then remembers the non verbal exchange that made her mother leave the room in the first place. "Did he answer his phone?"she changes the subject. Her mother smiles. 

"Well that's the other reason I sent everyone home. He didn't have to answer his phone." 

On cue the door behind them creeps open and her partner shuffles himself in, still in his suit from court but with his tie undone, his jacket in hand almost dragging the floor, and a look of exhausted joy on his face. 

That tight sense of dread in her chest lifts a tiny bit and she sighs again. 

"Oh my god what took you so long?" She asks. 

"He's been sitting in the hallway since two," her mother says. 

"Why?" She asks frowning confusion at her mother and then at him. 

"I didn't want to interrupt," he says, hovering with awkward posture at the end of the bed. Her mother waves him closer before she turns her entire attention back to her daughter and cups her face with both hands. 

"I'm going home for a bit and then to get dinner. I'll call you later and I'll bring you back something light to eat," she says as she drops her hands and wraps her up in a tight hug instead. "I am so happy you are going to be ok. Call me the second they let you go home. I love you so much," her mother adds. 

"Thank you mom. I love you too. More than you know." Her mom pulls back and stands up and then then surprises both she and her partner by hugging him tightly as well.

"Thank you Fox," her mother says and she can't help but notice the stunned look that waves over her partners face. 

"For what Mrs. Scully?" he adds hugging her mother back. She releases him so that she can look at him directly. 

"For giving me my daughter back." She says. 

They are several feet away but she can hear her partner swallow. He nods. 

"This has been a horrible month for you both and now that things are looking up please tell me you'll take a few days off and do nothing," her mother says as she continues to hold her partner at arms length. He smiles. 

"That's the plan," he says. 

"Good. Remember. Call me when you're discharged," her mother reminds her, before walking out the door and shutting it behind her. Before it can even fully click shut he's dropped his jacket and sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled her into a hug in one unbroken movement. 

"Oh my god you have no idea how happy I am that you're cured," he says. He's hugged her so quickly that her right arm is trapped between them at an uncomfortable angle and her left arm is pinned to her side. 

"I'm in remission Mulder it's not quite the same thing," she amends as he lets go of her and pulls a chair up so that he can sit down. 

"Semantics Scully," he mutters. She wants to argue that it's not just semantics but she can't spare the effort. 

"Skinner said the charges against you are dropped?" she says changing the subject instead. 

"Yeah. I guess so. Turns out I'm a free man." She closes her eyes. 

"Thank god. I've been so worried about you."

"Yeah sorry about that Scully you didn't need the extra stress." 

"Shut up Mulder," she says as she lays back against her pillow. "This isn't a time for apologies. This is a day that's given life altering good news to both of us. We should be relieved." She opens her eyes to see him watching her, nodding his head in micro movements in agreement with her statement. But then he narrows his eyes. 

"So then why don't you seem relieved at all?" he asks. "if anything you look more stressed out now than when I left you this morning."

She groans to herself inside of her head. Leave it to him to be the only other person in the world besides her mother to see straight through to her soul to pick up on the dread she is still harboring. 

That restricting swelling on either side of her throat signals again that tears are just waiting for any excuse to break out, but she forces them back and shakes her head and thinks: deny deny deny. 

"Mulder don't be ridiculous. I'm f..."

"Fine yeah I know," he finishes for her. "But you're not. You can lie to other people maybe even yourself but not to me, Scully. Sorry." She blinks and forces another swallow. 

She's been hiding from this all day. The truth she doesn't want to admit. Leave it to Fox fucking Mulder to find that truth and force it out. If she wasn't so upset she might laugh at the irony. Instead she takes a deep steadying breath and sighs. 

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she admits. He leans forward and stretches out so that he can wrap both of his hands around one of hers and he nods waiting for her to go on. "I mean I should feel happy and free and relieved but I don't. I still feel terrified and nauseous." 

"Mmhmm," he says encouraging this confession. 

Shit. She bites down on her lip and can feel her whole body tense up with what she doesn't want to talk about. 

When he speaks again his voice is warm and soft. His face isn't that far from her but he is still barely able to be heard over the noisy undertones of the rest of the busy hospital just outside the door. 

"Keep going Scully," he says. She's shaking her head but they both know it's not in regards to his statement but more as a mental stall tactic to get her mind moving again. 

"Mulder I thought I was going to die today. I woke up and I just...I could feel that something was different and I thought it was because this was the end," she finally allows herself to whisper in admission. His hands grip hers tighter and she squeezes her eyes shut. "This morning. When you left... I thought they'd detain you and I thought...I thought that I was never..." her throat catches and she can't look at him. 

"Scully," he whispers but she shakes her head and finds her voice. 

"I thought I was going to...to...have to...to face...and you wouldn't even be there with me when I'd finally...when I'd finally..." She can't continue. She can't force the words out. 

He stands up again without letting go of her hand and he sits back down on the edge of the bed. He's slower in hugging her this time so she has a chance to properly move her arms but her breath is still knocked away as he hugs her as tight as he can. "I'm such an idiot about this now Mulder, it's just that I was so scared. I knew without a doubt that I wasn't going to be alive this afternoon but here I am. I'm being so stupid," she says as her restraint reaches critical mass and a few tears start to break free. 

"You're not being stupid," he says. 

"I am! I'm being ridiculous. I didn't die. Just the opposite, I'm in remission and you weren't detained you're a free man but I'm still stuck in being scared to death and it won't let me go," she says. 

"Mmm," he mutters. "That doesn't make you an idiot, Scully. That's a hard emotion to shake. I was scared to death and it's still trying to hold on to me too," he admits.  
She leans her head harder into his collar bone and sighs. 

"You were scared?" She asks but she rolls her eyes at herself the second she asks it. "Oh. Of course you were scared Mulder. Your freedom was almost gone just like that." He snorts and she can feel him laughing. 

"My freedom? I couldn't care less about that Scully. I was terrified of losing you," he says. She falls silent. 

She knew he'd been struggling with her illness now for a few weeks, but she thought it was because of the 'them' that were behind this. He'd lost this particular battle in his quest with them. They'd won this round. They'd gotten to her and once again he had no proof. Nothing to nail them with. She hadn't really thought it could be more personal than that. 

Now she realizes that was probably stupid too. 

"You were scared of losing me?" She asks but it doesn't quite inflect like a question but more of a statement out loud so her brain can comprehend. 

"Please tell me that's not a legitimate question. In fact, full disclosure?" He asks. "When I told you I came here last night and couldn't bare to wake you I left out the part where I sat on the goddammed floor and cried for 45 minutes," he says. She pulls back for that. 

"What?" She says. He gives her an unreadable slightly amused look and hugs her back against him again. 

"That betrays my cool exterior doesn't it," he jokes. 

"Mulder..."

"Yeah I know. Sharing that kind of thing isn't our usual MO," he says. "Truth is though I have been in a lot of terrifying situations in my life. I've been in hostage situations, and I was on that train with a bomb, I've been sorta buried alive, and one time I was in an iffy little Cessna with engine issues when I was like 17 that almost wiped out on a mountain but I can still honestly say I have never been as blindly terrified in my entire 36 years of life as I was last night." 

"Really? Over losing me," she says. He starts to laugh. Really laugh. His shaking frame and rumbling giggles flood around her in their hug. 

"Scully, What kind of a sociopath do you think I am? You're my friend of course I was terrified of losing you!"

She lapses into silence. 

"No, wait," he says. "Hang on that's not right. You're not just my friend that's a bunch of crap. What you are is THE most important top of my list of friends, friend Scully. The only one I trust. Please tell me this isn't a news flash for you."

She wishes she could say that it wasn't. 

Her silence betrays the truth. 

"Scully, this isn't a news flash it?" he asks again. She shrugs. "Scully!" he admonishes. "Do you want to know how many people I call in the middle of the night? Or how many people can look at me when I'm spouting theories and not roll their eyes, or flat out think I'm insane? Even the gunmen think I'm nuts. The gunmen, Scully, think about that for a second. And do you know how many people put up with my bullshit and then care enough to not just put up with it but call me on it too? Or how many people follow after me when I run off like an idiot? Or save my life? Let me tell you. No one Scully. No one does. Just you," he says. "What the hell would I be without you?"

Great. There is no way she's going to stop from crying now. Thanks to her stupid partner and his stupidly not stupid honesty. She turns her face so that it's completely hidden against him and she lets go, crying in unattractive hitching gasping sobs. 

She cries for his kind words. She cries in relief that caring about him isn't once sided. She cries for being given a second chance at living. And mostly she cries just because finally can, safe here with her closest friend. 

Her fingers are sore and stiff from grasping at his shirt but she can't stop. She just hugs him tighter and loses control.

"I'm sorry Scully. I wasn't trying to make you cry," he says, rubbing her back and not knowing quite what to do. She can't speak. She just shakes her head. 

"Did I say something wrong?" He asks. She shakes her head more emphatically. 

"Do you want me to leave?" He asks. She shakes her head and holds on tighter. 

"Ok. Should I just shut up?" He asks. She shakes her head again. "Keep talking?" He asks. She nods. "Ok. I don't know what to say though. I'm kinda in shock over the fact that this was all news to you. I mean I make your list of being your friend too right? Even though I'm an asshole? It doesn't have to be real high on the list or anything but maybe towards the bottom there, somewhere maybe after Skinner and after that one lady in accounting that has the tattoo on her arm but before someone like Krycek maybe?" he says ending his monologue in doubt. 

"Jesus Mulder," she says as she chuckles which morphs back into a sob. "You're the top of my friends list stop being insecure. You're at the top pretty easily too, there's no real competition." She feels him relax. 

"Ah," he says. "Frohicky isn't going to be happy to hear that. Langly either. Skinner might even be a little bit disappointed." That pulls another smile from her but nothing else. She's still a fucking mess. She leans into him with her whole weight which isn't much. It's actually the lowest it's been since high school, but she feels unusually heavy against him as he holds her up. He pulls her in tighter and rests his cheek against her head. 

And just like that, these two hyper verbal idiots have run out of words to say. 

Silence falls and he lets her just cry. Which is oddly enough...helping. She's still exhausted. Her chest still feels heavy with dread. Nothing has really changed but she somehow feels better. 

She doesn't beat his 45 minutes from the night before, but she cries until she can't anymore. As she gathers herself together again, she starts to try and pull away from him but his arms don't budge. 

"Scully?" He asks instead,"When can you go home?" 

"Good question." She says. 

"Why are they even keeping you here?" He asks. She shifts. If he won't let her go she's at least going to make herself a bit more comfortable so she twists herself to the side and leans into him again. She closes her eyes and sighs. 

"Lots of reasons. They want my white count to go up. They want me to have a little bit more of my strength back. Mostly I think they want to run tests on me to figure out why a tiny piece of metal seems to have made a tumor shrink almost over night. I think I'm a curiosity. Plus to spite the tests I think they are kind of afraid that if I went into remission this quickly it could come back just as fast. Ow Mulder I...I can't breathe," she adds as his arms coil around her even tighter at that statement. He tries to consciously loosen them with a muttered apology but he's not real successful. She's still finding it tricky to get a full breath. 

"Are you...afraid of that too? Is that part of it?" He asks. She thinks that through. 

"No," she answers. "I'm not afraid of that. This is going to sound crazy..." 

"I'll be the judge of that. I'm an expert on crazy," he interrupts. She ignores that. 

"...but I know it's not just shrinking the tumor. I know it's completely gone. I can feel it somehow. I know without a doubt that I'm in remission. And I...I know I corrected you earlier when you said that I was cured because technically I'm not but I kinda feel like you're right. It's gone and I don't think it's coming back." 

"Me either," he adds. "So we're probably both crazy." 

"Oh great," she says weakly. He suddenly lets her go and she feels cold as the air around her is now granted access to her skin again. She starts to ask where he's going but closes her mouth when she realizes he isn't going anywhere. In fact he's pushing her to the side so he can lay down next to her instead. 

"Mulder wha..."

"Well if we can't go home yet we might as well take advantage of the fact that they have cable." 

The hospital bed isn't designed to have two adults crammed into it, especially when one of them is obscenely tall but he moves his arm around her and shifts pillows and twists around until they can actually both relax and not topple onto the floor. 

"Fine," she says as he grabs the remote and the television bursts to life.   
They find a documentary on bird life in South America and several minutes in everything catches up. Today has drained the hell out of her. She wants to keep going but she keeps nodding off and then jerking herself awake instead. After the third nod off she hears him laugh. 

"Oh for the love of god Scully just go to sleep. I'm not going anywhere. Really. I'm on leave from work I have nowhere I gotta be. I'm here until you kick me out." 

"Visiting hours are over at 8," she says. 

"Phhffth. So? I'm a federal agent what are they gonna do? Arrest me for laying down?" He asks. No. He's right. They won't. She's had her mom stay over a few nights this week and apparently he had even been here the night before. That rule, it seems, was more of a guideline. 

"You don't have to st..." 

"Scully I'm glad you're okay. I really am. But if you finish that sentence I am going to have no problem hitting you." He says. She smirks. Her heart wasn't in the objection anyway. She lets herself relax again and close her eyes. She's drifting but before she does she has one last thing she has to say. 

"Mulder?" She says. 

"Yeah?" He asks. 

"Thank you for saving my life," she says. She feels him shake his head. 

"Please don't do that. You've saved my life so much more than I have. We're still several saves away from square. Besides I selfishly did it more for me than I did for you. Well...sorta. But you're welcome Scully. I'm just glad it worked." 

She has just enough conscious energy left to smile and shake her head back at him and then she slips into a fantastically warm and comfortable sleep.


End file.
